Pakistani strikes in three eastern provinces of Afghanistan killed 36 civilians and wounded 163, the Taliban government’s deputy spokesperson said on Monday, as attacks between the two countries showed no sign of abating.

Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, said the operations on Sunday night were aimed at a terror group that his country blames for a deadly militant attack in Karachi that killed three security personnel over the weekend.

Tarar said Pakistani security forces had carried out an “intelligence-based ground operation” followed by airstrikes along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border targeting terrorist hideouts over the border.

Afghan authorities have repeatedly denied their territory harbours militants. The Taliban government said on Monday the airstrikes in three eastern provinces killed or wounded dozens of civilians. Spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the military action, calling it a “cowardly act of aggression”.

The strikes are the latest flare-up of violence between the two countries whose relationship has been fraught since the Taliban government took power in 2021, and follow a weeks-long war that erupted in February.

The strikes come a day after militants armed with guns and explosives targeted the regional headquarters of the paramilitary Rangers in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi, killing three soldiers. Security forces killed three attackers and arrested a wounded assailant, whom the military identified as an Afghan national.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the Karachi attack in a statement on Saturday night.

Tarar said Pakistan’s latest operation along the Afghan border targeted the hideouts and safe havens of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Fitna al-Khwarij, a term Pakistan uses for the Pakistani Taliban.

“Pakistan has always strived for maintaining peace and stability in the region, but at the same time shall not compromise on the safety and security of our citizens, which remains our top priority,” said Tarar.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks targeting police and security forces in recent years. Authorities have blamed the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, and allied militant groups for most of the violence. The TTP is a separate militant group from the Afghan Taliban, although the two are allies.

The neighbouring countries agreed to a ceasefire in March but there have been sporadic attacks since, with Pakistani strikes in June killing 13 people according to Afghan officials.

As Islamabad mediates between the US and Iran to end their war in the Middle East, Pakistan says its battle against militancy at home requires its strikes on Afghanistan.

Afghan authorities have repeatedly denied the country is used by militants and says Pakistani operations have caused a heavy civilian death toll, including a strike at a drug treatment centre in March that the UN said killed hundreds.

Pakistan and Afghanistan went to war in late February, with weeks of violence killing hundreds and displacing tens of thousands, according to the UN.

The conflict saw fierce fighting along the frontier and unprecedented Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan cities including the capital and southern Kandahar, where the Taliban supreme leader is based.

Mediation from several countries, including China and Saudi Arabia, has failed to produce a lasting resolution between the neighbours, and the frontier has been largely closed since cross-border violence in October.

In early March, Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, said that peace between Pakistan and Afghanistan could prevail only if the Taliban regime “renounced their support for terrorism and terrorist organisations”.

With Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press